The Washington Redskins won a game, but that, unfortunately, means their dreams of the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft have been put to rest.
Bill Callahan is undefeated this season as interim head coach. People will forget that. This fact will surely falsify in the coming weeks, but for now, he’s 1-0 leading the Washington Redskins. He now has more wins than his nation’s capital coaching predecessor Jay Gruden this season.
Things are looking up for the Redskins until you realize that Washington won’t have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. That’s because the team the Redskins beat on Sunday was the hopeless Miami Dolphins, who now fall to 0-5 on the year. For a sliver of an instant, we almost thought Ryan Fitzpatrick was going to orchestrate the most FitzMagical drive of his NFL career.
Too bad Miami hadn’t practiced going for two. That horrendous 2-point attempt was something that set football back 10 years. And with that, Washington improves to 1-5 by sinking the Dolphins 17-16 in Miami Gardens. More importantly, this means Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Tua Tagovailoa won’t be wearing burgundy and gold professionally anymore.
Wins are hard to come by, but when two terrible teams clash, someone has to come out on top. On Sunday, it was Washington, a franchise guaranteed to win at least one game this year. The same thing can’t be said for the dreadful Dolphins or the crummy Cincinnati Bengals. Those teams might be winless before they meet in South Beach in late December to decide who’s picking first.
The truth of the matter is this: Washington wasn’t going to draft a franchise quarterback in 2020 anyway. The Redskins already have owner Daniel Snyder’s guy in Dwayne Haskins, who Washington took in the middle of the first round in this past spring’s draft. So no Tua, Justin Herbert, Jake Fromm, Jacob Eason, Joe Burrow or Jordan Love in burgundy and gold. That’s over.
Washington may take the best player available. That could be pass-rushing extraordinaire Chase Young out of Ohio State or maybe a new franchise left tackle in Andrew Thomas out of Georgia. It’s not like Trent Williams is having fun anymore in the nation’s capital anyway. It’ll be the Haskins show in D.C. in 2020 with a new head coach and a blue-chip prospect that isn’t a quarterback.
In the race for last, Miami did enough to not get a victory this week. Cincinnati looms large as a loser, but there are so many other bad teams scattered across the league to keep an eye on. I’m talking about you, Atlanta Falcons. For now, Washington can say that it is out of the running for the No. 1 pick in 2020. Congrats, Miami and good luck, Cincinnati. You’ll need it. We all will.